Tag Archives: assessment

I played about 40 rounds of golf last summer, my personal best and probably the most I can reasonably squeeze in for our short Canadian summers. Things are starting to look up but I figure to really improve, I need to be brutally honest with myself and evaluate where I stand right now.

How the 2012 Season Ended

My Ugly Summer of 2012 (the year prior) consisted mostly of lingering in the mid 90s. With my handicap, you can imagine there were some crazy swings. My worst round was a 107 but guess what? I shot my personal best of 85 at the same course one month later. I managed to break 80 four times total at 85, 89, and 89, and 86. Those 80s round are usually followed by a back-down-to-earth 93-96.

Driver was a horrendous mess. I started the year fine, but once I started adapting to a strong grip, it started to slowly kill my driver. It’s one thing to slice it to another fairway but I was fighting between short 20 yard pop ups and low diving, 40 yard hooks into the bushes. I still remember finally giving up during the last round that year putting away the driver, not trusting my woods and hybrids, and going all the way down to a 6 iron to tee off just so balls are in play. On the occasional good drives, I could hit it 210 on average and maybe 235 if I connect perfectly.

Irons were starting to improve. I figured out my PW as my go to club from 100 yards out and started to lay everything up to the red stick marking 100y out for anything I couldn’t reach (around 180 at that point).

Chipping was more reasonable- infrequent scalding and chunking but still too far from the hole

Sandplay was inconsistent- some good shots but plenty of second shots from the bunker

Putting was terrible- let’s face it, no matter how you are supposed to be confident, putting up 38-42 putts a round is a ugly confidence killer

My gear were also old, basically 10 years behind. I had a banged up Taylormade R580XD (which I learned golf with.)

An artist’s rendition of my 10 years old modern day driver

I also had some older game improvement irons and I’m not even sure where my sand wedge came from. Everything could be considered “modern” but they were beginning to show their age.